Reflection

About 8 weeks ago I created a personal theory of learning that centered around project-based learning environment combined with a social learning environment where students create concrete objects to assess their learning and work together regularly to do so. Throughout the last 8 weeks, I have been exposed to concepts, strategies, and tools that reinforce my beliefs in this type of learning environment and am excited to incorporate them into my classroom someday.

One aspect that I may choose to modify within my personal theory of learning relates to my use of social learning. When I discussed the use of social learning, I did so assuming that the social learning would take place among the students in my class or possibly also with students from other classes. However, with one of the technological tools I have been exposed to, (which I will discuss later) I realized that I could extend this even further and work with students from other cities, regions, and even countries.

Some of the things I have learned over the course of 8 weeks will have an immediate impact on my instructional practices in the classroom. One of these is the use of a program such as Inspiration that allows students to create digital graphic organizers. By doing this, students will be able to incorporate this technological into their learning so they are able to organize their thoughts and utilize the program to create artifacts that will be used to assess their learning. A second short-term goal that I have in regards to integrating technology is to incorporate a blog in my classroom. Most students have probably had experiences with blogs or things like them so I believe I could make this transition relatively seamlessly. My experiences using a blog over the past eight weeks have reinforced my beliefs that they can be used successfully in a high school classroom. I feel that this will be a great tool for students to express their thoughts and opinions based on the content that we are learning.


In addition to these immediate impacts in my classroom, there are also some long-term goals I have integrating technology. One long-term goal that I have in regards to technology in my classroom involves VoiceThread, which is a tool that I feel could be very effective in the classroom. My actual goal is to eventually collaborate with students from another state or even another country using this program. I think that would be a great tool for a social studies classroom to be able to look at a historical event and learn the perspectives of students from another country. This goal is long-term for me because I want to ensure that I am proficient using the technology before I try to integrate it in my classroom on such a large scale. Once I feel very comfortable using VoiceThread, I plan on incorporating it within my classroom. A second long-term goal of mine is to continue learning and becoming comfortable with new technologies as they are procured. I think this is essential to being an educator in today's world and I want to make sure that I take the steps necessary to ensure that I do. Therefore, I will make a commitment to a lifelong learning of technological tools that I can integrate in the classroom to ensure that my students will always be prepared for the world in which they will eventually work in and be able to succeed using these tools.